An Edible Bloom

I have just clambered out of the pile of courgettes our garden has produced, it’s amazing there are more and more everyday, it’s all very exciting! I especially love the vibrant orangy, yellow flowers, they are quite striking! and of course edible, which is wonderful news, living on a shoe string budget at the moment makes any food we can grow ourselves very pleasing and so very helpful.

After reading up on some delicious sounding recipes for some inspiration on how to make a scrummy dinner out of these fabulous blooms, I came up with the following, adapting some of the recipes slightly to fit with what we had in the fridge:

Makes a great starter or lovely as an accompaniment to fish, serves 2:

Ingredients:

6 to 8 courgette flowers (depends how hungry you are, in our house we tend to always eat lots!)

4 0z soft Goats cheese

Good handful of a mixture of fresh herbs (depending on what you have, but the following are great, basil, mint, oregano, thyme or parsley)

1 egg

100g plain flour

Salt and pepper

5 tbsp Olive oil (you may need more, this is for frying, if the frying pan becomes dry just add more oil)

Method:

Pick your selection of flowers, then just open them up gently and remove the stamen and any rogue bug that might be hiding in there.

Chop up your selection of herbs nice and finely and then in a bowl mash up the cheese and mix in the herbs, so you have a paste.

Then gently open up the flowers and fill each one with the cheese mixture then just twist the top of them closed.

In a separate bowl crack in the egg and whisk up, then stir in the flour and season with salt and pepper.

Dip each flower into the egg and flour mixture and then heat the olive oil in a large frying pan.

Once the oil is piping hot, just throw in your flowers and keep turning them over coating them in the olive oil and until each side is a golden brown and lovely and crispy. Then dig in whilst still nice and warm.

I hope you get a chance to try this out and hope you enjoy it, bon appetit!